My Abyss Survival Diary

Chapter 48 The Terrifying Night Before the Final Battle

The wreckage of the transport ship emerged from the mist, resembling the skeleton of a giant whale forgotten on the seabed.

An aluminum alloy frame emerges diagonally from the scorched soil, with rib-like arc-shaped support beams arranged one after another to form a series of repeating arches.

Molten metal drips onto the ground, cools, and solidifies into teardrop-shaped lumps embedded among the rubble.

The cabin skin had long since vanished, leaving only the bare skeleton exposed in the hazy sunlight, like a spine that had been skinned and shaved.

Simon stepped inside the wreckage, his boots echoing hollowly as they trod on the charred alloy steel plates.

The interlocking skeletons overhead cut the hazy sky into countless irregular fragments, and the wind whistled through the gaps in the skeletons, sounding like the moan of a whale.

Elphis stood in the middle of the wreckage, put his trekking axe back into his waistband, and took out four gray bricks from his canvas bag.

"Clay bombs for clearing the mountain." He stood up, dusted off his hands, "They're small, but incredibly powerful. We'll install the detonator and blow off the Hungry Angel's legs as soon as it comes in, trapping it here."

Frani took a roll of thin copper wire from her canvas bag and skillfully began to lay the wire in the direction of the bomb.

Klein stood beside a slanted support beam, sniper rifle across his knees, surveying the surrounding ruins.

Brock walked over, pulled a long, narrow oilcloth bag from the bottom of the canvas bag, peeled it open layer by layer, and inside was a pistol.

He skillfully secured the sniper scope in the dovetail groove above the barrel, tightened the screw, aligned the stock with the bottom of the grip, and rotated to lock it in place.

A weapon that looked neither like a pistol, nor a rifle, nor a sniper rifle appeared in front of Klein.

"Try this sniper pistol carefully selected by the Cave Thief, paired with thorn bullets." Brock pulled a tin box from his coat pocket, opened the lid, and inside were six bullets with fine dark red patterns on the surface. "The bullets are very brittle; they'll explode when they hit flesh, and the shards will get stuck around the wound, making the monster's regeneration much slower."

"Thank you..." Klein took the strange gun, weighed it in his hand, and hesitated whether to use it.

Simon noticed that Pike, the tomb raider carrying a birdcage, was crouching in an inconspicuous corner, leaning against a charred support pillar.

The pigeon coop was placed at his feet, the door closed. Several strange birds huddled together, their gray feathers fluffy. Pike lowered his head, his lips almost touching the wire of the coop, and whispered something.

What was he saying? His voice was so soft that even Simon, with his enhanced hearing, couldn't make it out.

Footsteps came from outside the ruins. Professor Loris, leaning on his cane, emerged from the fog, followed by two sinners, one carrying a wicker basket and the other a tin box.

They are currently short-handed and unable to move supplies such as food, so they have to ask Professor Loris and other sinners for help.

Professor Lorris's white hair appeared even whiter in the mist, his eye sockets were deep-set, and he had heavy dark circles.

"Canned food, water bottle, bandages." His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't had water in a long time. "You guys should rest."

Simon pulled a can from the wicker basket, pried open the lid with his dagger, and found chunks of meat soaking in a murky broth with a strong, rusty taste.

He took a bite; the flesh was as hard as rubber, and he chewed it for a long time before swallowing.

A young criminal was squatting beside him.

He was eating canned food, eating very quickly, with the broth overflowing from the corner of his mouth and dripping onto his collar.

He ate half of it, then suddenly stopped chewing. His throat bobbed as if he were swallowing something hard, and then he began to cough violently.

His face turned bright red! Veins bulged on his forehead, he bent over, hands on the ground, coughing and trembling all over.

Blood flowed from his nose and down his lips. His cough turned into dry heaving. His mouth opened and something gushed out of his throat—not food scraps, but flower petals!

Dark purple, sunflower-like petals, wet and curled at the edges, were squeezed out one by one from between the lips, falling onto the muddy ground and piling up in a small heap.

Everyone around stopped what they were doing. Klein put down the can he was holding with a look of surprise and doubt, his fingers resting on the pistol handle. Badal picked up the shotgun.

"Purple sunflower petals! Purple sunflower seeds were mixed in with the canned food. The seeds sprouted in his stomach, grew up his esophagus, and blossomed in his throat." Breanne, in her birdcage, saw the sinner's symptoms and the scattered petals on the ground. She warned sharply, "The petals will block his trachea, and he'll suffocate to death from the flowers growing in his stomach!"

Simon was the fastest, returning to his past life's work, prying open the sinner's mouth and cleaning the petals from his oral cavity.

"Franny, the injection!" Elfis crouched down and held out his hand to the girl.

Flani paused for a moment, then pulled a roll of rag from her pocket and spread it on the ground. Inside were three syringes: white, yellow, and purple. Elphis took out the white syringe and injected it directly into the sinner's right vein.

One minute after the injection, he vomited more frequently, but he managed to vomit up all the flower petals and his condition gradually improved.

click-

Klein suddenly drew his pistol and pointed it at Elphis, while Flannery smoothly drew her twin guns and pointed them at him as well.

The atmosphere instantly became tense and explosive, with everyone instinctively placing their fingers on their weapons.

"You brought this damn thing up here, didn't you!" Klein frowned. "This isn't a plant from this level!"

"Listen, handsome, I have absolutely no reason to poison you. Why go through all this trouble just to kill a criminal I don't even know?" Elfis remained calm and defended himself clearly. "I even used a syringe to save him. The raw material for that stuff is the bone marrow of a hunting beast, which is extremely precious."

Simon stood up, placed his hand on Klein's pistol, and forced him to put it down.

"The poisoning was random; I saw him pick up that can himself." Simon remained calm, his gaze sweeping across the faces of everyone present as he calmly reasoned, "If it was the cave raiders, the seed might have been eaten by one of their own."

"The killer poisoned us so that we would fight amongst ourselves before we even saw the monster."

Klein looked at the sinner who was still coughing up blood, then at Simon, and slowly shoved the dagger back into his waistband.

At Elphis's instruction, Flannie put her two pistols back into their holsters.

Simon turned to Elphis and said, "Mind if we check? Everyone, open your bags and check them. The killer may have carried more than one seed."

Elphis paused for two seconds, then nodded to Brock and Pike.

Simon examined the packages of the tomb raiders, the wicker basket and tin box that Professor Loris had brought, and every suspicious crack in the surrounding area.

There were no purple sunflower seeds, and no evidence to prove who the murderer was.

As darkness fell, spore light leaked through the gaps in the tree canopy, casting a bluish-green glow on the charred metal skeletons, making the ruins resemble an ancient tomb submerged in the ocean.

Elphis leaned against the support pillar, his eyes closed, his mask facing the sky. Flani squatted beside him, two guns resting on her knees, her fingers on the grips.

Klein, Badr, Professor Loris, and two other sinners sat on the other side of the ruins, deliberately keeping their distance from the tunnel raiders, their eyes filled with distrust.

The murderer was among them...

The thought of fighting alongside a killer lurking among them is terrifying.

No one spoke on this terrifying night; everyone tacitly remained silent.

They were waiting for dawn, waiting for the monster.